On this day in Labor History the year was 1939.
This was the day readers were first introduced to John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.
The novel follows the fictional Joad family as they flee the dust bowl of 1930’s Oklahoma.
They go to California in the hope of a better life.
There they find more workers than available jobs and struggle to make their way in the difficult system of farm migrant labor.
The novel was a fictional telling of the real life experiences of more than one million people. Known as the ‘Okies” these farmers left Oklahoma and other states during the Great Depression searching for work.
The book won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
The year after the novel was released. John Ford directed the story into an acclaimed film. Actor Henry Fonda starred as Tom Joad.
In the movie version, at the end of the film Tom must leave his family to escape the police. Saying goodbye to his mother he tells her not to miss him.
Saying, “I'll be everywhere. Wherever you can look - wherever there's a fight, so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there. I'll be in the way guys yell when they're mad. I'll be in the way kids laugh when they're hungry and they know supper's ready, and when the people are eatin' the stuff they raise and livin' in the houses they build - I'll be there, too.”
Tom Joad became a powerful, lasting symbol of the poor and downtrodden fighting for a better life.
Woody Guthrie recorded the Ballad of Tom Joad, and Bruce Springsteen titled an album “The Ghost of Tom Joad.”
Labor History in 2:00 brought to you by the Illinois Labor History Society and The Rick Smith Show